Facebook Messenger is adding group effects so that everyone in a video call can participate in the same augmented reality experience at the same time. The company said these effects can now be used in Messenger video calls and Messenger Rooms (the service’s Zoom-like video conferencing feature), and will soon appear on Instagram.
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There are currently more than 70 group effects, including a game where a player competes to build a virtual burger, and another game where a virtual orange cat takes a picture of a call, and so on. This is a shift from the instant messaging service to augmented reality functions, which are often only applicable to one participant at a time. Facebook said that starting from the end of this month, developers will be able to use its Spark AR API to build more group effects.
In addition to the shared group AR experience, Facebook also announced that it will launch a series of small features in its chat service this month. The new word effect will allow iOS Messenger users (and ultimately Android users) to trigger animations when certain phrases are used in a chat.
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For example, in August, the company showed how to set up a message with the phrase Happy Birthday! to trigger a party pop-up emoji to fly onto the screen. There are also new Soundmojis to match No Time to Die, as well as chat themes and Halloween artworks for Messenger chat and Instagram private messages.